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FCC to Drop Morse Testing for All Amateur License Classes

NEWINGTON, CT, Dec 15, 2006 -- In an historic move, the FCC has acted to drop the Morse code requirement for all Amateur Radio license classes. The Commission today adopted, but hasn't yet released, the long-awaited ReportandOrder (R&O) in WT Docket 05-235, the "Morse code" proceeding. Also today, the FCC adopted an OrderonReconsideration
in WT Docket 04-140 -- the "omnibus" proceeding -- modifying the
Amateur Radio rules in response to an ARRL request to accommodate
automatically controlled narrowband digital stations on 80 meters in
the wake of rule changes that became effective today at 12:01 AM
Eastern Time. The Commission said it will designate the 3585 to 3600
kHz frequency segment for such operations, although the segment will
remain available for CW, RTTY and data as it has been. In a break from
what's been the usual practice in Amateur Radio proceedings, the FCC
only issued a public notice at or about the close of business today and not the actual Report&Order,
so some details -- including the effective dates of the two orders --
remain uncertain. Currently, Amateur Radio applicants for General and
higher class licenses have to pass a 5 WPM Morse code test to operate
on HF. Today's R&Owill eliminate that requirement all around.

"This change eliminates an unnecessary regulatory burden that may
discourage current Amateur Radio operators from advancing their skills
and participating more fully in the benefits of Amateur Radio," the FCC
said. The ARRL had asked the FCC to retain the 5 WPM for Amateur Extra
class applicants only. The FCC proposed earlier to drop the requirement
across the board, however, and it held to that decision in today's R&O.

Perhaps more important, the FCC's action in WT Docket 05-235 appears to
put all Technician licensees on an equal footing: Once the R&O
goes into effect, holders of Technician class licenses will have
equivalent HF privileges, whether or not they've passed the 5 WPM
Element 1 Morse examination. The FCC said the R&O in the
Morse code docket would eliminate a disparity in the operating
privileges for the Technician and Technician Plus class licensees --
something the ARRL also has asked the Commission to correct following
the release of its July 2005 Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in WT Docket 05-235.

"With today's elimination of the Morse code exam requirements, the FCC
concluded that the disparity between the operating privileges of
Technician class licensees and Technician Plus class licensees should
not be retained," the FCC said in its public notice. "Therefore, the
FCC, in today's action, afforded Technician and Technician Plus
licensees identical operating privileges."

Technician licensees without Element 1 credit (ie, Tech Plus
licensees) currently have operating privileges on all amateur
frequencies above 30 MHz. Tech Pluses or Technicians with Element 1
credit have limited HF privileges on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters. Under
the Part 97 rules the Commission proposed last year in its NPRM
in WT Docket 05-235, current Technicians lacking Morse credit after the
new rules went into effect would have had to upgrade to General to earn
any HF privileges.

The wholesale elimination of a Morse code requirement for all
license classes ends a longstanding national and international
regulatory tradition in the requirements to gain access to Amateur
Radio frequencies below 30 MHz. The first no-code license in the US was
the Technician ticket, instituted in 1991. The question of whether or
not to drop the Morse requirement altogether has been the subject of
often-heated debate over the past several years, but the handwriting
has been on the wall -- especially since the FCC instituted an
across-the-board 5 WPM Morse requirement effective April 15, 2000, in
the most-recent major Amateur Radio licensing restructuring (WT Docket 98-143).

The FCC said today's R&O in WT Docket 05-235 comports with revisions to the international RadioRegulations
resulting from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World
Radiocommunication Conference 2003 (WRC-03). At that gathering,
delegates agreed to authorize each country to determine whether or not
to require that applicants demonstrate Morse code proficiency in order
to qualify for an Amateur Radio license with privileges on frequencies
below 30 MHz.

The list of countries dropping the Morse requirement has been
growing steadily since WRC-03. A number of countries, including Canada,
the UK and several European nations, now no longer require applicants
for an Amateur Radio license to pass a Morse code test to gain HF
operating privileges. Following WRC-03, the FCC received several
petitions for rule making asking it to eliminate the Morse requirement
in the US.

Typically, the effective date of an FCC Order is 30 days after it appears in the FederalRegister.
If that's the case, the Morse requirement and the revised 80-meter
segment for automatically controlled digital stations would likely not
go into effect until late January or early February 2007. That's not
clear from the public notice, however. The FCC can order its decision
effective upon release.

The ARRL will provide any additional information on these important Part 97 rule revisions as it becomes available.